RMM Upgrades A Continual Path For Continuum

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Continuum got off to a late start when it came to revamping and expanding its RMM platform and expanding its feature list compared to competitors, but the Woburn, Mass.-based company, expects to catch up quickly with regard to mobile device management, help desk support, virtualization security and more, said executives.

CRN's Scott Campbell spoke with Continuum CEO Michael George and Vice President of Marketing Steve Ricketts after the company unveiled its newest help desk service offering to talk about Continuum's growth strategy. Here's what they had to say.

Last March, you talked about being able to monitor and manage "anything that is plugged into the wall in an SMB environment." How close are you to making that happen?

George: It's a little further out, but not a lot. We're on a "forced march" to get to those things. We want to [manage] everything that goes into the wall, into a network. You'll see us broaden the things we support, and the next frontier for us is in VoIP services and print services. We already do some level of this through SNMP [simple network management protocol], but we'll provide more comprehensive control and access through our portal for all these devices. This isn't years away. We chew through this quarter by quarter. We've done a great job achieving parity [against competitors] quickly, and now we're [leading] in areas and will continue to do so.

You recently came out with support for Apple Mac environment. How has that been received in the market?

Ricketts: That's been received very well. Most of our clients have some Macs, and the ability to provide full endpoint coverage is very important. More recently, with our July 30 release, we've announced mobile support. Now, you access the [RMM] portal from a mobile device, such as an iPhone. You can look at [service] tickets, alerts. You are able to log in through LogMeIn into the end client's computer through the mobile device.

Another key enhancement has been the upgraded anti-malware. We have Vipre and Malwarebytes. Adding Malwarebytes [is] a direct response to some surveys we did of what the preference was for anti-malware and anti-virus software. Malwarebytes was the clear winner. We're excited to be able to offer that at no additional cost. It's included in the cost of a desktop agent. That also includes LogMeIn capability. Today, we're the only ones that offer LogMeIn remote access bundled with an RMM agent. No other RMM provider provides that as part of their software license.

NEXT: Mobile Device Management Coming In addition to being able to use an iPhone or iPad to manage a client's device, when will you be able to manage those mobile devices as well?

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